Dear Brothers and Sisters,Today we contemplate and re-live in the liturgy the outpouring of the Holy Spirit sent by the risen Christ upon his Church; an event of grace which filled the Upper Room in Jerusalem and then spread throughout the world.But what happened on that day, so distant from us and yet so close as to touch the very depths of our hearts? Luke gives us the answer in the passage of the Acts of the Apostles which we have heard (2:1-11).
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“We’ve Returned to the Golden Calf” – Francis on Money Earlier today, the Pope received a group of four new ambassadors to the Holy See for the presentation of their credentials.Per custom for the pontiffs, Francis gave an address on issues of geopolitical concern.
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Schönborn as “Alpha Male” – At HTB, A Clasp of the Titans His hair still apparently electrified from a Conclave experience roundly described as intense in prayer and its outcome a shock even to the electors, earlier this week – in what’s become a rare English-language turn – Vienna’s Cardinal Christoph Schönborn OP gave some colorful testimony on the election, Popes Benedict and Francis, the situation of the church and much more at the annual leadership conference of the vaunted “HTB”: Holy Trinity Brighton, the evangelical London Anglican parish best known for birthing the Alpha Course of evangelization and catechesis…
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The News, As It Happens Lest anybody forgot – or for newcomers ’round these parts – even when things aren’t moving on these pages’ centerpiece, you’ll find the up-to-the-minute ticker either just down the right sidebar here, or directly via this link.Even if that’s already become obvious for some (hopefully most) here, the metrics and mail seem to say the reminder’s in order. In any event, as some 20 stories tend to flit by daily, suffice it to say that: 1.
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“In the end, a bishop is not a bishop for himself. He is for the people, and a priest is not a priest for himself.
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“And Lighten Our Understanding….” “In the exercise of my ministry as the Successor of Peter, I have come to America to confirm you, my brothers and sisters, in the faith of the Apostles. I have come to proclaim anew, as Peter proclaimed on the day of Pentecost, that Jesus Christ is Lord and Messiah, risen from the dead, seated in glory at the right hand of the Father, and established as judge of the living and the dead
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Finally together again in the roll of the saints as they worked alongside each other in life, this Friday brings the feast of the first minister of Hawaii’s Molokai leper colony to be canonized, St Damien de Veuster.Just three years after his 2009 raising to the altars, the Belgian-born cleric was joined last October by his longtime collaborator, now St Marianne Cope, who succeeded Fr Damien as the colony’s guide following his death at 49 in 1889 after contracting the disease.Having attained the requisite “national cultus” to be added to the US calendar just prior to her canonization, the New York-bred Mother Marianne’s feast is now celebrated beyond Hawaii on 23 January. Honored in today’s church as an unofficial patron for both HIV/AIDS sufferers and the marginalized in general, Damien – and Marianne with him – continues to be revered as a hero in the islands; a statue of the priest stands outside the capitol in Honolulu, and a copy of it is one of the two “representatives” of Hawaii that (alongside two outstanding figures from every other state) occupy a place in Statuary Hall at the US Capitol in Washington
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So, folks, welcome to the most confusing day of the ecclesial calendar on these shores.Here at the desk, this 40th day of Easter is Ascension Thursday – a holy day of obligation….Drive about 25 minutes south, however, and it isn’t.This year marks two decades since the split first took root.
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Resolving the US’ longest-standing vacancy after 17 long months, at Roman Noon this Monday Pope Francis named Bishop Mark Seitz, 59, an auxiliary of Dallas since 2010, as bishop of El Paso – in terms of diocesan population, the new pontiff’s most significant Stateside choice to date.At the helm of the 700,000-member fold along West Texas’ border with Mexico, Seitz, who moved from his native Wisconsin to study as a seminarian in Texas, succeeds Bishop Armando Ochoa, who was returned to his native California as bishop of Fresno – now home to a million Catholics – in December 2011. In an unusual tackling of long-distance double-duty, Ochoa, who turned 70 last month, has been serving as apostolic administrator of his former charge, and is slated to present his successor at a 10am Mountain press conference in the Pastoral Center hall dedicated to the Martyrs of America
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Border Crossed – After 17 Month Wait, Pope Taps Dallas’ Seitz for El Paso
“Space” Oddity – Cali Jesuit in Boston Launched to Oakland In an exceedingly rare appointment of its kind, Pope Francis has named Michael Barber SJ, 58 – a California Jesuit currently serving as a spiritual director at Boston’s St John’s Seminary – as bishop of Oakland.Rare… Francis..
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About Me Name: Rocco Palmo One of global Catholicism’s most prominent chroniclers, Rocco Palmo has held court as the “Church Whisperer” since 2004, when the pages you’re reading were launched with an audience of three, grown since by nothing but word of mouth, and kept alive throughout solely by means of reader support.
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“Space: the final frontier….”As veterans will know, long ago our crowd in Oakland dubbed their Cathedral of Christ the Light the “Space Egg” …and come Roman Noon tomorrow, the East Bay’s postmodern seat will receive the third bishop of its less than five-year year existence.According to a memo issued this morning by the apostolic administrator of the 600,000-member diocese – Seattle’s emeritus Archbishop Alex Brunett – the successor of the now-Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, named to San Francisco last July amid a firestorm, is to be revealed Friday morning and, in a remarkably quick turnaround, will take office 22 days later, on May 25th at 11am.”I am sorry for the time line of this announcement and the tight schedule,” Brunett told the Oakland clergy, explaining that “these choices were made by the Apostolic Nuncio.”According to Whispers sources, however, the bishop-elect won’t simply be installed, but ordained.
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One Vatican… Two Popes At the end of a cataclysmic 80 days, with B16′s welcome by his successor to the Pope-emeritus’ new home in the Vatican Gardens, perhaps this afternoon is the moment that’s finally seen Avignon turned on its head.Received by the Cardinal-Dean Angelo Sodano and the Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone SDB, on his evening touchdown at the Vatican heliport – clad in the scaled-down robes agreed upon before his February resignation – no video of the ex-pontiff’s return was released by the Holy See, only photos.PHOTO: L’Osservatore Romano-30- posted by Rocco Palmo at 17:11
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“Monz” At Rest – Harrisburg’s Beloved McFadden Dies Suddenly at 65 Earlier today, Joseph Patrick McFadden – tenth bishop of Harrisburg, yet eternally a priest of Philadelphia – died suddenly at 65.According to reports, McFadden felt ill and was taken to a hospital during a meeting of the Pennsylvania bishops in his hometown.
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"Monz" At Rest – Harrisburg’s Beloved McFadden Dies Suddenly at 65
All of 80 days since Joseph Ratzinger turned the topmost reality of a 1.1 billion-member church on its head, later today brings even more history as the now Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI returns to the Vatican to take up residence in his new home at a converted monastery in the city-state’s gardens.More than seven centuries since the a freely-willed papal resignation last took place, never before has a Roman pontiff lived alongside his predecessor. And keeping with the spirit of warm fraternity evident from the first moments following his election, the Pope is said to be “very likely” to be present to welcome His Fluffiness on B16′s arrival at the Vatican heliport after a two-month respite at his beloved Castel Gandolfo while the new residence was being prepared.Though no firm coverage plans for the moment have emerged, the retired Pope’s return promises to make for some more epic images.
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Back to today’s patroness, “What did she understand by renewal and reform of the church?” Papa Montini asked in conferring the title on Catherine.
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Francis’ Name-Day Treat – Poking Fun at CDF In a rare glimpse of his usual, unscripted daily preaching style – and with the closest camera-shots of the new pontiff to date – here’s video of Papa Bergoglio’s homily at his onomastico Mass this morning in the Pauline Chapel with the cardinals currently in Rome…….and, per Vatican Radio, the English rendering of Pope Francis’ off-the-cuff text: I thank His Eminence, the Cardinal Dean, for his words: thank you very much, Your Eminence, thank you. I also thank all of you who wanted to come today: Thank you.
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Normally, the legislative advocacy of the US bishops is expressed in writing by the chair of the relevant conference committee….Then there was what happened yesterday.With tensions already flaring as the Senate approaches a high-stakes battle on an immigration reform bill, the Stateside church’s twin top guns came together to push for action on the issue in an afternoon conference call – a rare head-on joint charge by the conference president, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, joined by Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles, the head of nation’s largest diocese. (A Mexican-born immigrant, Gomez is likewise the bench’s Migration chair.) Among other notable elements of the hourlong, Dolan-dominated “policy call” were the cardinal’s emphasis that the church’s support for migrants “isn’t some wild, left-wing cause, this is classic Catholic teaching,” going so far as to term it “an essential element of Catholic doctrine”; the Gotham prelate’s comparison of the current hostility toward Muslim emigres with the cultural bigotry faced by Catholic immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries, and a pointed prod to his conservative flank that the church’s grassroots “momentum” in advocating against abortion and for religious freedom be applied to the immigration fight.Employing unusually strong language, Dolan said that on the matter of reworking the current immigration protocols, “We bishops believe that now is the time
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